First of all I'd like to hi to all of you. I've been lurking this forum for too long, I figured I might get back into the whole forums thing and how can I start better than contributing something to the community? 
First of, just a bit about myself, those who don't care scroll down to get to the list
!
Well, my real name is Alex, 18y old and finishing my last year of High School to then start with IBMS (International Business and Management Studies) at a university. I'm living in The Netherlands, better known as the land of beer and drugs and I'm into the whole website thing since I was about 13. It started off with good old Frontpage and at that time I was a member of a big (dutch) webmaster community. I didn't have hosting or a domain back then, but when I was about 15 I won a contest at that same community for the best tutorial. The prize was hosting and a domain name and oh boy, I couldn't be happier. I registred the domain Scito.nl - Laat je MSN bruisen! - Al 12032 leden! - De leukste en beste MSN site! - Gratis Emoticons, Gratis Avatars, Gratis Bewegende Smileys, Gratis Achtergronden, Gratis MSN Namen and my first site was born (back then a webradio site, doesn't really matter). I could test things, it was more for personal use than for others, but I still thought it was awesome. Anyway, some time later it all changed when I got into the "MSN Messenger business" (Mess with MSN Messenger: msn emoticons msn names display pictures download - does it ring a bell? That's what I mean with MSN Messenger business). MSN is a really big thing here in Europe, it's like AIM in the US. Anyway, I got a leaked version of MSN Messenger 6.0 BETA, which was a HUGE upgrade from the previous version. Silly as I was, I uploaded it to my site, and gave the link to a few friends so I didn't have to transfer it each time through the contact window. Well, within 2 days I had received over 5000 downloads, what a chain reaction.
I noticed this (when I got a call from my hosting provider asking me what the hell I was doing to their server...) and made a 'mini site' (in a subdirectory) with some information about MSN Messenger 6.0. A week later I hit 2 of the biggest newspapers of the Netherlands and so Scito.nl as MSN site was born (which it still is). It kept growing (10 000 unique / day) and I got 2 dedicated servers within a year. Last year (when I was 17) I started my network of websites, including text-based games, weight-loss sites and even the famous 'profile websites'. I started my own company and needless to say I'm very happy with the amount I earn by now (which is more than the teachers at my school to give an indication). Unfortunately, I have yet to start an international site... But soon, I hope, my first one will launch!
Ok, well, enough of that blablabla for now, let's get to the list as promised. Some of these tools I use daily, others I use once a week but they're all very helpful in my opinion (most of you probably know them, but oh well... Not everyone does!)
Domain Popularity: this is one of my favorites for sure, making an analyse of your backlinks is a piece of cake with this. Needless to say, it's also great to check your "opponents". This tool also gives an indication of the value of a site, go check it yourself !
Page strength: another tool to check the value of a website, it should be the replacer of the PageRank, even though it's far from perfect. The bad thing (for my own websites, I use it for my customers) is that it's mainly focused on the US/International market where factors like del.icio.us, Technorati and Alexa play a major role.
Visual Pagerank: useful to analyse your own websites and subpages especially!
Shoemoney SERP Tool: Should be known by most of you, easily check your ranking in the 'BIG FOUR'!
Keyword Density: Self explaining, checks the keyword density of a page! SEO purposes!
Dig Pagerank: When Google is doing the PR update on the toolbar, it's always fun to manually check your new number!
Linkpopularity: an easy to use tool to check the popularity of your site in different search engines. The bad thing about this tool is, that it still uses the old MSN search which means the amount of backlinks may not always be correct.
Google Analytics: THE statistic system for your websites. You can use it to find the strong and weak points of your site to play with those two factors next to give better results from Google. Must-have!
Google Trends: Want to start in a new niche? Make sure to check this tool for the search volume. Pretty self-explaining why to use!
I hope you guys like it (as my first post) and hopefully I can make myself post more instead of just reading everything in here. The info I got from you guys is golden, thanks in advance for that!
Good night (almost 23PM over here)!
First of, just a bit about myself, those who don't care scroll down to get to the list
!Well, my real name is Alex, 18y old and finishing my last year of High School to then start with IBMS (International Business and Management Studies) at a university. I'm living in The Netherlands, better known as the land of beer and drugs and I'm into the whole website thing since I was about 13. It started off with good old Frontpage and at that time I was a member of a big (dutch) webmaster community. I didn't have hosting or a domain back then, but when I was about 15 I won a contest at that same community for the best tutorial. The prize was hosting and a domain name and oh boy, I couldn't be happier. I registred the domain Scito.nl - Laat je MSN bruisen! - Al 12032 leden! - De leukste en beste MSN site! - Gratis Emoticons, Gratis Avatars, Gratis Bewegende Smileys, Gratis Achtergronden, Gratis MSN Namen and my first site was born (back then a webradio site, doesn't really matter). I could test things, it was more for personal use than for others, but I still thought it was awesome. Anyway, some time later it all changed when I got into the "MSN Messenger business" (Mess with MSN Messenger: msn emoticons msn names display pictures download - does it ring a bell? That's what I mean with MSN Messenger business
). MSN is a really big thing here in Europe, it's like AIM in the US. Anyway, I got a leaked version of MSN Messenger 6.0 BETA, which was a HUGE upgrade from the previous version. Silly as I was, I uploaded it to my site, and gave the link to a few friends so I didn't have to transfer it each time through the contact window. Well, within 2 days I had received over 5000 downloads, what a chain reaction.I noticed this (when I got a call from my hosting provider asking me what the hell I was doing to their server...) and made a 'mini site' (in a subdirectory) with some information about MSN Messenger 6.0. A week later I hit 2 of the biggest newspapers of the Netherlands and so Scito.nl as MSN site was born (which it still is). It kept growing (10 000 unique / day) and I got 2 dedicated servers within a year. Last year (when I was 17) I started my network of websites, including text-based games, weight-loss sites and even the famous 'profile websites'. I started my own company and needless to say I'm very happy with the amount I earn by now (which is more than the teachers at my school to give an indication). Unfortunately, I have yet to start an international site... But soon, I hope, my first one will launch
!Ok, well, enough of that blablabla for now, let's get to the list as promised. Some of these tools I use daily, others I use once a week but they're all very helpful in my opinion (most of you probably know them, but oh well... Not everyone does!)
Domain Popularity: this is one of my favorites for sure, making an analyse of your backlinks is a piece of cake with this. Needless to say, it's also great to check your "opponents"
. This tool also gives an indication of the value of a site, go check it yourself !Page strength: another tool to check the value of a website, it should be the replacer of the PageRank, even though it's far from perfect. The bad thing (for my own websites, I use it for my customers) is that it's mainly focused on the US/International market where factors like del.icio.us, Technorati and Alexa play a major role.
Visual Pagerank: useful to analyse your own websites and subpages especially!
Shoemoney SERP Tool: Should be known by most of you, easily check your ranking in the 'BIG FOUR'
!Keyword Density: Self explaining, checks the keyword density of a page! SEO purposes
!Dig Pagerank: When Google is doing the PR update on the toolbar, it's always fun to manually check your new number!
Linkpopularity: an easy to use tool to check the popularity of your site in different search engines. The bad thing about this tool is, that it still uses the old MSN search which means the amount of backlinks may not always be correct.
Google Analytics: THE statistic system for your websites. You can use it to find the strong and weak points of your site to play with those two factors next to give better results from Google. Must-have!
Google Trends: Want to start in a new niche? Make sure to check this tool for the search volume. Pretty self-explaining why to use!
I hope you guys like it (as my first post) and hopefully I can make myself post more instead of just reading everything in here. The info I got from you guys is golden, thanks in advance for that!
Good night (almost 23PM over here
)!
